What does PalCaptureRate actually change?

Less than the number suggests, and this is the setting people most often misread. Palworld applies the rate to an internal BaseChance, and the chance you actually experience is the cube root of that. So the catch chance scales by the cube root of the rate, not by the rate: at PalCaptureRate 2.0 a Pal you would catch 20% of the time is caught about 25% of the time, not 40%. Even PalCaptureRate 10 only takes that Pal to roughly 43%. The chance still cannot pass 100%, so on an easy target a high rate buys almost nothing.

Does WorkSpeedRate make base work twice as fast at 2.0?

Yes for the time a job takes: the duration scales by 1 divided by the rate, so a 60-second job takes 30 seconds at 2.0 and 20 seconds at 3.0. What it does not change is which Pals can do the job at all, or their work suitability level, so a base with no Kindling Pal still cannot smelt however high the rate goes.

Does a higher PalDamageRateDefense make my Pals tougher?

No, it is the opposite, and this is the setting people most often set backwards. PalDamageRateDefense multiplies the damage your Pals take, so raising it to 2.0 makes them die twice as fast and lowering it to 0.5 makes them twice as durable. If you want a tankier team, set it below 1.0.

How long do Palworld eggs take to hatch on a dedicated server?

PalEggDefaultHatchingTime is an absolute number of hours, not a multiplier, and the vanilla default is 72. Set it to 24 for a third of the wait, to 1 for a near-instant loop, or to 0 for eggs that hatch as soon as they are placed in an incubator.

Tools / Palworld

Palworld: Difficulty Calculator

Every other rate table tells you what a setting is called. This one tells you what your number does: paste the config your server is running and each rate is shown against vanilla, in spheres, seconds, hit points and hours. Nothing is uploaded, and the numbers update as you drag.

Load your server's settings (optional)

Paste your PalWorldSettings.ini, or just the OptionSettings=(...) line. Only the rate keys below are read; passwords and anything else are ignored and never leave your browser.

What your rates do

Your config never leaves your browser Vanilla column read from the rules file Pal stats from the pinned palcalc bundle

Catching a Pal

PalCaptureRate

Vanilla20%5 spheres per catch

Your server20%5 spheres per catch

Same as vanilla.

A Pal you'd catch % of the time on vanilla

The rate is applied to an internal BaseChance and the chance you experience is its cube root, so the catch chance scales by the cube root of the rate: doubling the rate is about a 26% improvement, not double. Probability stops at 100%. Spheres per catch is the average, not a guarantee.

Getting work done

WorkSpeedRate

Vanilla60s60 jobs per hour

Your server60s60 jobs per hour

Same as vanilla.

A job that takes seconds on vanilla

Duration scales by 1 ÷ rate. It does not change who can do the job: work suitability is a property of the Pal, so check the Pal database if a job is not being picked up at all.

Surviving a fight

PalDamageRateAttack · PalDamageRateDefense

Vanilla70 ATK70 effective HP

Your server70 ATK70 effective HP

Same as vanilla.

Using stats →

Defense is the setting people set backwards. PalDamageRateDefense multiplies the damage your Pals take, so 2.0 halves how long they live and 0.5 doubles it. Effective HP is base HP ÷ that rate. Base stats are level-1 values from the Pal database.

Hatching an egg

PalEggDefaultHatchingTime

Vanilla72h0.33 eggs per day

Your server72h0.33 eggs per day

Same as vanilla.

This one is not a multiplier - it is the number of hours, and 0 means the egg hatches the moment it goes in an incubator. It is the single biggest lever on how long a breeding project takes; plan the parents with the breeding calculator.

Apply these to your config: Open the settings generator with these values → OptionSettings=()

The six rates, and what each one is worth

Setting	Vanilla	Range	What moving it actually buys you
`ExpRate`	1.0	0.1 - 20.0	Levelling time scales by 1 ÷ rate. The usual reason a co-op server sets 2.0 is that the mid-game grind is tuned for solo play over months, not a group over weekends.
`PalCaptureRate`	1.0	0.1 - 2.0	Spheres per catch, on average, divided by the rate. Caps out: against a Pal you already catch 60% of the time, 2.0 saves under one sphere.
`WorkSpeedRate`	1.0	0.1 - 10.0	Base throughput. Raising it does not fix a base that is missing a work suitability, and it does not raise the worker cap.
`PalDamageRateAttack`	1.0	0.1 - 5.0	Damage your Pals deal. Applies to wild and enemy Pals too, so it shortens fights in both directions.
`PalDamageRateDefense`	1.0	0.1 - 5.0	Damage your Pals take. Higher is harsher, not tougher. Set it below 1.0 for a team that survives raids.
`PalEggDefaultHatchingTime`	72.0	0.0 - 240.0	Hours, absolute. 72 → 6 turns a breeding project from a fortnight into a weekend; 0 hatches on placement.

Presets worth starting from

Vanilla: every rate at 1.0, hatching 72h. Use it as the control before you change anything.
Casual co-op: ExpRate 2.0, capture 1.5, work 2.0, damage taken 0.7, hatching 6h. The common shape for a group that plays a few evenings a week.
Hardcore: ExpRate 0.7, capture 0.7, work 1.0, damage dealt 1.0, damage taken 1.5, hatching 72h. Note the direction: harder means raising the defense rate, not lowering it.
Breeding server: hatching 0-1h with everything else at vanilla. Changes the loop completely without touching combat balance.

Change them without editing a file

Every number on this page lives in one OptionSettings line, and a typo in it is the most common reason a Palworld server boots on defaults and quietly ignores everything you set. On a managed Palworld server these are form fields with the ranges already enforced, the file is regenerated and validated on save, and the world is backed up before every game update - so a rate change is a click, not a restart-and-hope.

Check a config you already have → · Which Pal for which job → · Element matchups →

Want this on a real server? Supercraft hosts Palworld →